The attack on the Israeli consulate in Munich and the Bosnian Islamist threat
What brought Emrah Ibrahimovic, son of Muslim refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) who found refuge three decades ago in Austria from the horrific civil war, to carry out an attempted attack on the Israeli consulate in Munich earlier this month on the 52nd anniversary of the massacre of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics?
What caused the religious radicalization of the 18-year-old young man who was born in Austria and grew up in a family that could serve as a model of successful integration of Muslim immigrants in a Western country? The Ibrahimovic family – parents and two children – recently moved to a private house with a large garden in a picturesque and calm small town on the banks of a lake near Salzburg. The mother had her own business. It is an almost bourgeois atmosphere – a dream come true for many refugees and immigrants. And despite all that, the Munich attack following which Emrah lost his life.
Emrah Ibrahimovic’s religious radicalization did not stem from poverty and economic suffering or his family’s difficulties of absorption in the country it chose to settle in instead of returning to its homeland. Ibrahimovic radicalization did not begin as a reaction to media reports on the suffering of the Arab population in the Gaza Strip since October 7. Already at the beginning of 2023, ten months before the Hamas pogrom, the Austrian police conducted an investigation against Ibrahimovic following complaints of violent behavior at the technical high school he attended.
The Austrian police found on Ibrahimovic’s confiscated phone Islamist propaganda content of ISIS and video games of shooting training. In addition, Ibrahimovic was known to be interested in weapons. Despite these findings, the authorities in Austria decided in April 2023 to close the investigation against him, stating that he didn’t pose any “security risk.” However, the young man was prohibited from purchasing weapons until 2028. The ban did not prevent Ibrahimovic from buying the old Swiss rifle he used during the attempted attack on the Israeli consulate in Munich.
Since Ibrahimovic was shot dead by the German police at the scene and so far, there is no information pointing out that he was a member of an active terrorist network, the investigation into the circumstances that motivated the young Austrian-Bosnian to attack the Israeli consulate is still ongoing. Was he reacting to an ISIS jihad call, which was released a few days before the Munich attack on its Al-Naba media channel, encouraging “lone wolves” to carry out attacks in Europe against Jewish, Israeli, and Christian targets in light of the situation in the Gaza Strip? Did Ibrahimovic receive detailed instructions from any operatives to attack the Israeli consulate in Munich on a date of great symbolic significance?
What caused his religious-ideological radicalization, which began before October 7? What did his family exactly know about the radicalization the young man went through? Before learning about the attempted attack in Munich, the family reported their son’s disappearance to the police. He was supposed to arrive at a new workplace, where he had started working only a few days before, but he did not show up. The quick reaction of the family, who are not known religious, to the disappearance of Emreh may indicate that the parents had suspicions of their son’s behavior.
Radicalization in Bosnia fuels migration
According to Bosnian media reports, the Ibrahimovic family has come to Austria from the Bosnian-Muslim city of Zenica. This city is considered one of the strongholds of radical Islam in BiH – a multi-ethnic federal state with a majority of Muslim citizens.
Since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the descent of BiH into a bloody civil war between the three ethnic groups that make it up (Bosniak-Muslims, Serbs, and Croats) and the Dayton peace agreement of 1995 that brought the war to an end, the Muslim population in BiH has become significantly influenced by radical Islamist elements, including the “Muslim Brotherhood,” Turkey and Iran.
The European Union and the United States, who in practice manage this fragile confederation, willingly ignore the process of religious radicalization of the Bosniak Muslim population that has been taking root, especially among its younger members.
A significant part of this radicalization process is the cultivation of identification between the Bosniaks and the Palestinians, strengthened by the invention of direct comparisons between the sufferings of the Bosniaks during the civil war in their country and the sufferings of the Palestinians. In their historical narrative, the Bosniaks tend to completely suppress the massacres they were responsible for during the civil war and present themselves solely as the victims of a genocide committed by mainly the Serbs while the West kept silent – the same way it “allows” Israel to commit “genocide” against the Palestinians today.
This identification with the Palestinians has developed among Bosniaks intense anti-Israeli feelings, clearly expressed on the streets of the Muslim cities of BiH in demonstrations, exhibitions, banners, and PLO flags hanging all over. This identification existed well before the “Swords of Iron” war throughout the military conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians in recent years.
It has intensified vehemently since the beginning of the current war. Hatred of Israel, by the way, does not prevent Bosniaks from making use of the Holocaust for their own purposes by relativizing it and comparing it to the massacres of Bosniaks in the civil war and the killing of Palestinians in the war initiated by Hamas. Did the intensifying anti-Israel incitement in Bosnia also affect Emreh Ibrahimovic, the terrorist in Munich?
Close to 100,000 people from all ethnic groups in BiH live today in Austria. About 225,000 of them live in Germany. These are the two largest groups of immigrants from BiH in European countries. Although the civil war in BiH ended three decades ago, many of those who came to Austria and Germany during the war as refugees have not returned to their homeland and are naturalized citizens of both host countries. However, they maintain a fairly close relationship with BiH and are inspired by political developments there. In all the big cities of Austria, including Salzburg, there are Bosniak community centers.
In Salzburg, Bosnians also have their own mosque. However, experts on radical Islam claim that, unlike former waves of terror activities, the radicalization of young Muslims in Europe is operated nowadays, not through sermons in mosques. Since young Muslims are aware that the authorities’ supervision of what is happening in the mosques has tightened in recent years, they prefer receiving radical religious content and teachings via the Internet. This makes it difficult for the security services to locate “lone wolves” before they carry out attacks.
After many years of being a safe haven, Austria has now been added to the map of Islamist terror targets. Since the deadly terrorist attack carried out in the center of Vienna in November 2020 by a young Austrian Muslim of Albanian-Macedonian origin, in which four people were murdered, the internal security authorities were successful in foiling a number of terror attacks by ISIS adherents, including an attack in June last year against the Vienna Pride Parade planned by young Austrians of Bosniak and Chechen origins, as well as an attack against a recent concert of Taylor Swift, whose two main planners were a young Austrian of Macedonian origin and a young Austrian of Turkish-Croatian origin.
All these cases indicate a growing violent religious radicalization and readiness to commit terrorist attacks by young descendants of refugee and immigrant families from the Balkan countries. Saša Ulic, a senior adviser to the Serbian member of the federal Presidency of BIH Željka Cvijanović, warns that the attempted attack on the Israeli consulate in Munich clearly indicates that “the seed of evil sown in BiH in the 1990s has long been spreading its toxic fruits throughout Europe. The problem won’t disappear if we ignore it. It will only increase.”
Source » msn.com
